Really, Does Google Use Whois Registrar Data to Rank Sites? Can They?

Google became a domain registrar back in January 2005. Since then SEOs have been trying to determine to what extent, if any, does Google use this data when ranking sites in the search results. We have covered this extensively in the past with articles named:

Bill Slawski posted a detailed analysis of this at SEW blog named Does Google Use Whois Information? and then followed it up with a thread at Search Engine Watch Forums. In those discussion, Bill shows how a new ICANN definition may disallow Google from using such data for purposes outside of the scope of providing "a point of contact when there are technical problems with a web site." Ranking Web sites based on registrar data is well outside of that scope.